2012 LSU Math Contest

Team Problems

No calculators are allowed.

Pictures are only sketches and are not necessarily
drawn to scale or proportion.
You have one hour and fifteen minutes to complete the
entire team session.
These 10 questions (except 5 and 10) require exact numeri-
cal or algebraic answers. Hand written exact answers must
be written with fractions reduced, radicals simplified, and de-
nominators rationalized. Do not make an approximation for
π or other irrational numbers. Answers must be exact.
The tiebreaker for the team competition is time. If your
team reaches a point where you are satisfied or expect that
you will not have more solutions in the allotted time, then you
may wish to turn in your paper a little early to get a time ad-
vantage.
7 Each face of a cube is to be colored red, yellow or green,
such that there are two faces of each color. What is the
maximum number of distinctly colored cubes, indepen-
dent of how they are held?
8 For twenty consecutive days water has been added to a
pool containing originally 1000 m3 of water. The first
day 25 m3 was added. Then every next day 2 m3 more
water was being added than the previous day. At the
same time 50 m3 has been drained from the pool every
day.
After how many days will the amount of water in the
pool be the lowest?

1 Given that tan α + cot α = 4,

9 Simplify the expression
√
find tan2 α + cot2 α.
r s r
2 Find the probability that a sum of two randomly picked √ √ √
q q q
(different) numbers from the set {1, 2, . . . , 9} is even. 2+ 3 2+ 2+ 3 2+ 2+ 2+ 3
s r
√
q
3 What is the remainder when you divide x2012 + x + 1
× 2 − 2 + 2 + 3.
by x2 + 1?

4 What is the angle between a plane intersecting two par-

allel faces of cube along their diagonals with a plane in-
tersecting two other parallel faces of a cube along their
diagonals? 10. Divide the pictured polygon into two connected con-
gruent subpolygons both consisting of little triangles.
5 Positive numbers a and b satisfy the condition Shade one of the subpolygons.
√ √
a − b > a − b > 0.

Which of the following three statements about a and b

are then√true: √ √ √
A 1 > a + b; B b > b; C a > b.

6 Use the triangles on the picture to compute tan 22.5◦ .

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